Ultrafast manipulation of antiferromagnetism of NiO

The magnetization dynamics of antiferromagnetism (AFM) NiO after excitation with an intense optical 100 fs pump pulse were discussed. It was observed that the dynamics were carried out using second and third harmonic generation as probes for the AFM and crystallographic sublattices were discussed. It was also observed that the recovery of the magnetic ground state occurs as coherent oscillation of the AFM order parameter between hard- and easy-axis states manifesting itself as quantum beating. The results show that the coherence time was ∼1 ns with the beating frequency being determined by the anisotropy energy.